OURAN, OR URAN, SOANGUS,
The name of an imaginary set of magicians in the island Gromboccanore, in the East Indies.
The word implies men-devils; these people, it seems, having the art of rendering themselves invisible, and passing where they please, and, by these means, doing infinite mischief; for which reason the people hate and fear them mortally, and always kill them on the spot when they can take them.
In the Portuguese history, printed 1581, folio, there is mention of a present made by the king of the island to a Portuguese officer, named Brittio, ourans, with whom, it is pretended, he made incursions on the people of Tidore, killed great numbers, &c.
To try whether in effect they had the faculty ascribed to them, one of them was tied by the neck with a rope, without any possibility of disengaging himself by natural means; yet in the morning it was found he had slipped his collar. But that the king of Tidore might not complain that Brittio made war on him with devils, it is said he dismissed them at length, in their own island.